Please Empty Your Pockets, 2010

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, a Mexican-Canadian media artist, is best known for his interactive installations, whether placed in an urban, public space (as in the case of his Relational Architecture series) or in a gallery. In his artworks the artist makes use of a wide range of new media and devices such as sensors, biometric scanners, surveillance cameras, tracking systems, and microphones.
The installation Please Empty Your Pockets consists of a computerized scanner and a conveyor belt. Anybody may participate in the creation of a new piece of interactive art by placing a small item of their choice on the conveyor belt. The installation’s structure is reminiscent of an airport security scanner, the only difference being that in this case civilian participation is optional. Scanned images of the objects appear at the other end of the conveyor belt. New items reemerge together with those scanned earlier and those drawn from a bank of 600,000 items scanned and recollected in the installation. With the aid of “augmented reality” techniques, the installation combines real objects with the traces they leave, thus functioning as a collective memory of the consumed objects. (DM)